


The Cat-Moon Eats the Gray Mice of Night

by mllelaurel



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blindfolds, Bondage, Cuffs, D/s, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, F/M, Fear Play, Hella Undernegotiated Kink, Implied Edelgard/Hubert, Kidnapping sort of, Multi, Unauthorized Use of Miasma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel/pseuds/mllelaurel
Summary: Fed up with all the prevaricating, Hubert delivers to his Emperor the object of her desire.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra, My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 18
Kudos: 95
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	The Cat-Moon Eats the Gray Mice of Night

Byleth hears Hubert on approach. Unsurprising in and of itself. He never did manage to successfully sneak up on her. Still, something about his movements is a fraction louder this time. Showier than it needs to be. It’s like he wants her to spot him, but doesn’t want to admit it. 

“Professor Eisner.” 

Ridiculous, the way they all still insist on her title. Even back in school, Hubert was scarcely younger than her. He’s older than her now, having borne the full weight of the five years she lost in Rhea’s fire. 

Byleth turns around, hands still streaked with sword oil. “What do you need?” she asks. 

Green eyes crinkle at the corners in dark amusement. “Please face the wall,” Hubert says, “and put your hands behind your back.” 

Byleth’s new-reborn heart gives a muted kick. Heartbeats quicken to signify emotion if you’re human. She’s still learning the meter and melody of the one inside her chest. 

Some strange sort of feeling rifles through her. Instinct says it’s not fear, though fear’s one of the hardest for her to recognize. Excitement, perhaps? Some harp-string anticipation of both? 

“What are you playing at?” she asks. No way to know for sure if she’s picked the right question. All she knows is that Hubert’s made a point of testing her since the day they met. He’s also trusted her not only with his life and that of his beloved Emperor, but with the raw truths of the war they fought, in the shadows and the bloody aftermath. 

Hubert chuckles, low and inscrutable. “You have proven a source of great consternation, Professor. You leave me no choice but to take you into custody.”

If Hubert wanted her dead, he’d have already arranged an accident. Assuming Byleth proved no match for him, of course. She’s always held her own just fine in the past. If he wished to interrogate her, a tasteless sedative would have found its way into her tea. She’d wake in a cell, or perhaps his office upstairs with those lovely, regularly-cleaned rugs. 

Still, she’s curious. 

She catches his eye before complying. Holds it and his attention just a second longer than she should. Hubert’s never been among those discomfited by her stare. Which is well enough. She doesn’t do it to make people uncomfortable. 

For the most part. 

She rests her forehead against the cool brick and folds her hands into the small of her back. The position would make a decent enough stretch before a workout. She’ll have to keep it in mind for future reference. 

“Close your eyes,” Hubert commands. His voice sends that inexplicable shudder of not-fear down her spine. The reaction is new, and she chases the feeling, rolls it around on her tongue even as her eyelids drift shut. 

Cool manacles settle around her wrists and click shut. Clever. She’s pretty sure she can snap or wiggle out of any rope bind. Curiouser still is the soft padding on the inside of the cuffs. Something like felted velvet, snug to her skin. 

Then rough sacking shoved over her head, the weave of it loose enough she can breathe. Whatever Hubert’s doing, he’s being awfully thoughtful about it. 

She tells him as much, muffled through the cloth, and his hand settles on the back of her neck. “Careful, Professor,” he says. “I might have to gag you next.” 

Definitely not interrogation then. Not unless the gag is an idle threat, or Hubert feels like removing and replacing it as he questions her. He’s a hardworking man, but that’s a little ridiculous, even for him. 

Hubert’s cape settles around her with a crinkle. His hand grips her shoulder, and the wall supporting her is abruptly gone with a sucking pop of displaced air and the smoky, metallic smell of magic. A warp spell, but where to? 

Reality comes back with a firm shove and the plush give of a carpet as her knees hit the floor. Could this be Hubert’s office after all?

Unlikely. She can sense another presence. A startled inhale. “Hubert? What in the world—?”

Oh. There’s no mistaking Edelgard’s voice. Something in Byleth’s chest tightens and loosens all at once, an oddly gentle hot ache. 

She can picture the swish of Hubert’s perfectly executed bow. “A gift delivered for your Majesty.” 

“Is this a joke?” Strong, delicate hands pull up the hood. Trembling fingers brush back her hair. Byleth squints against the sudden light, struggles against the manacles for the first time as they keep her from shielding her face. “My teacher, I…” 

She’s in Edelgard’s personal chambers, Byleth realizes as her eyes adjust. Papers scatter over a familiar mahogany desk, ruffled by the breeze coming in from the open window. The door to Edelgard’s bedroom is slightly ajar. 

“May I be blunt, my lady?” Hubert asks, cool as ice. His posture is all calculated nonchalance. He’s always done exactly as he wished. This time, Byleth thinks, he is _almost_ certain of the outcome. That ‘almost’ is what sets him on edge. 

Edelgard rubs her temples, wincing. “A permission I always grant and you never take.” 

“You want her, do you not?” Hubert says. 

Edelgard flushes. Embarrassment, a touch of indignation, something like anger. Her jaw is set, her mouth a thin white line. 

Hubert’s voice goes silky soft. “You’ve an entire continent spread out in supplication before you. And yet in this you deny yourself.” 

“You said ‘blunt,’ not ‘disingenuous.’” Edelgard stoops to Byleth’s side in a fluid swirl of her gown. “Do you honestly think I would betray the trust of my dearest—” she pauses, swallows, changes her words midstream. “My dearest friend and ally this way?”

What did she hold back in that moment? Byleth’s throat tightens with the need-to-know of it. 

“My teacher,” Edelgard says. “ _Byleth_. I am truly… Let me render my apologies. And also unchain you” she adds, holding out an imperious hand. “Hubert, the key if I may.” 

Her warmth next to Byleth is like an aura. Not quite touching her. Not enough. “I don’t mind,” Byleth says. Then, to Hubert, “You could have just explained.” 

Hubert smirks. “Now what would be the fun in that?” He folds his arms, satisfied. “Just so, my lady. Do you really think I could have captured our dear Professor if she felt like putting up a fight? Or, more specifically, if she did not yearn to be caught?”

Edelgard, in all her majesty and glory, sputters. 

“I _really_ don’t mind,” Byleth clarifies. At least she hopes that would make the matter clearer. That thrill when Hubert first told her to turn around, the clasp of the manacles, the giddy frustration of not knowing what was to come. The hot shiver of it settles like the blaze of whiskey in her throat. 

She watches Edelgard’s expression slowly shift. From shocked—an arrow to the throat—to a whole other kind of shocked, mouth parted, breathing sharp, to an eyes-wide understanding. To a cool, dangerous gleam which zings like lightning through Byleth’s blood. 

“You will never cease to amaze me,” Edelgard says, shaky and fond. She takes hold of Byleth’s chin, locking eyes with her. “If this isn’t—” She cuts herself off and kisses her, fierce and desperate, bright red as her Empire. Her teeth worry Byleth’s lower lip, a pleasant tugging sharpness. The wisps of her hair tickle Byleth’s neck. She’s let it down in private, a simple side-tail to replace her usual updo. What would it feel like to run her hands through it? Would it be coarser, Byleth wonders, as white hair often is? Would it be as silky as it looks? The answer is irrelevant. Her hands yearn for the feel of it either way. 

She’s not exactly proud of the squeak she lets out when Edelgard swings her into her arms. Leave it up to Edelgard to break her composure. 

“Shall I release her for you, my lady?” Hubert asks. “It seems you have her well in hand after all.” 

Edelgard’s lips curve, catlike. Familiar lavender eyes, now iolite-dark, turn to Byleth. “You did say you didn’t mind, my dear one.” Her mouth seems to taste the unfamiliar words, trying them on for size. “Far be it from me to deny you.” 

At last Byleth finds her voice again. She hadn’t even realized it had snagged. “Kiss me again?” she asks. The words come out plaintive, alien to her own ears. 

Edelgard’s smile lights up her entire face. This time, Byleth kisses back as soon as she’s within reach. She tastes sweet waxy lip gloss and slick warm skin. Her tongue traces the elegant arc of Edelgard’s upper lip. 

“I will have to put you down at some point,” Edelgard says between kisses. “Hubert, would you please?” She jerks her chin at the door leading to her bedroom. 

Hubert does as he’s told, graceful and more than a little smug. “I will leave you to it, then.”

“Wait.” Edelgard pauses in the doorway. “Your work here isn’t done.” 

“The key?” Hubert asks archly. 

Only a few steps to Edelgard’s bed. The coverlet is cool and soft beneath Byleth’s cheek. The mattress bounces slightly as she lands. 

“One moment,” Edelgard whispers, then turns to Hubert once more, command etched into every vertebra of her. “I did not mean the key,” she says, advancing. “What were your exact words? She wouldn’t have let herself be caught if she did not _yearn_ for it?”

He steps closer as she talks, drawn in by her. 

“And did you not then accuse me of hesitating?”

“Do you deny it?” Hubert says mildly. 

Edelgard laughs. “Brave words for a man so _invested_ in the outcome of this game.” She reaches up to draw a single gloved fingertip along his jaw. “Sounds an awful lot like yearning to me.” 

Hubert is pale enough that he does not actually blanch. Perhaps this is why he slathers himself with all that powder, Byleth thinks. She’d assumed it was simply commitment to a very particular aesthetic. Instead, his face betrays a hint of pink. 

“And your desire to leave?” Edelgard continues. “A perfect example of your own reticence.” She stares him down. “Tell me I’m wrong.” 

He is the first to look away. “You are not wrong.”

“Well then.” Edelgard gives his cheek a rough pat, not quite sharp enough for a slap but a fond shadow of it nonetheless. “You stay. In this as in all things, your hands shall be my hands.”

With a hand over his heart, Hubert sinks to one knee before her. “Yes, your Majesty.” 

“Hold her for me,” Edelgard tells him. 

Hubert rises to his feet and crosses to the bed where Byleth lies, stopping only to remove his boots and release the catch of his cloak, dropping it carelessly over the back of a chair. After a moment’s thought, he tugs off her own boots as well, iron-tight grip on her ankle before letting go. 

He leans over her, lips brushing her ear. “It seems I am to remain your captor for a while yet.” Gloved hands slide up the back of her neck and into her hair, almost tender, their close proximity filling her nostrils with the heady wild scent of leather. “Let me guess. You will say that you don’t mind.” The hand in her hair twists, baring her throat and forcing a low noise from between her teeth. 

“Beautiful,” Edelgard breathes, sliding in next to them. Hubert shifts to make room for her, reclining against the backboard to settle behind Byleth. His arm drapes around her waist, pulling her closer. 

Edelgard hooks her fingers into the white starched collar on Byleth’s throat. “May I take this off?”

Byleth nods. 

“I trust you will tell me immediately, should anything we do make you uncomfortable,” Edelgard says, far more order than question. 

Byleth nods again. 

Edelgard is quick to dispatch with the collar, unclasping the hooks in the back and laying it aside. Without it, Byleth feels oddly naked, the skin at the hollow of her throat tender and vulnerable. Her pulse thrums under Edelgard’s touch. 

“I wish I could…” Edelgard bites her lip, then nods to herself, coming to a decision. She lifts her hand to Byleth’s face. “Take off my gloves for me.” 

Byleth’s confusion only lasts a split-second. Her hands may be out of commission, but there are other ways to get things done. The thought sounds an awful lot like Felix Fraldarius espousing his favored fighting philosophy, so out of place here Byleth nearly laughs out loud, only holding it back for fear of having to explain. 

Instead she takes Edelgard’s fingers in her mouth. The fine kidskin dampens under her tongue as she catches a fingertip between her teeth and tugs. It’s not as easy as it looks, the glove a perfect fit to Edelgard’s hand, without a lot of give. And yet. The way Edelgard’s lips part unconsciously as she watches Byleth work, the sweep of pale lashes, the hunger in her gaze, make the effort gloriously worth it. 

Another tug, fighting Hubert’s grip on her hair, and the glove comes free. With Edelgard’s fingers still hovering within reach, there’s no resisting the urge to kiss them, to taste newly-bared skin on the tip of her tongue. 

Edelgard strokes her cheek with the other hand. “Please tell me I didn’t dream you,” she murmurs, barely audible. 

“I’m real,” Byleth says. She’s fought for this reality, a battle won far more dearly than the one for her life. She’s fought for her freedom and her self, and her very right to _have_ a self contrary to Rhea’s expectations. She’s fought for the woman at her side and will keep fighting for her as long as anything which can be called ‘Byleth’ still exists. 

Such conviction. It’s still new to her. Some might argue it came part and parcel with a heart, but that can’t be right. Those embers began to glow the moment she chose to stand by Edelgard. 

“You’re perfect,” Edelgard says, her voice giddy. “But,” she interjects, “you’ve still half a job left to do.” 

The other glove, easier this time, now that she’s had practice. Edelgard kisses her when she’s done, deep and ravenous. Her hands seek Byleth’s skin. Her bare arms, her neck, the bumps of her collarbones. 

“Will you be satisfied with just this?” Hubert asks her. Byleth can hear the raised eyebrow in his tone. 

Edelgard makes a show of consideration. “How much do you care about these clothes?” she asks Byleth. 

“My knife, plus an item in my pocket,” Byleth says. “Other than that…” She’s had things she cared for. The knife, once her father’s. The gray cloak left hanging in her closet, a gift from a cloth merchant their troop had rescued from brigands. The collar Edelgard had so carefully removed, bought on a whim when she was sixteen and had whims all too rarely. The rest of her clothes are irrelevant. Utilitarian at best. She wears them in battle, their destruction only inevitable. 

The tiny cloth bag Edelgard pulls from Byleth’s pocket joins the collar on her nightstand, its contents too overwhelmingly important to think about right now. The knife immediately follows. “Now then,” Edelgard says to Hubert. “Would you be so kind as to ‘remove the obstacles in my path’?” Her impression of him is pitch perfect, and this time Byleth does laugh, a tiny snort, an exhalation of air. 

Laughing. That’s new as well. Like heartbeats, and fear, and having her own opinions. All new. All hers. 

If Hubert is offended, he gives no indication. Instead he tugs Byleth closer as his left hand air-sketches a complex spell array. 

Byleth gasps as she recognizes the spell. 

“Would you rather we blindfold you?” Hubert asks, taunting, daring and driving her to say she’s not afraid. The room fills with the acrid smell of dark magic. “No,” he says, before she has a chance to reply. “You’ll want your eyes open for this.” 

Byleth has seen what a Miasma can do. Heard grown men scream as their flesh dissolved, sloughing off in fetid half-liquid. She can tell this array’s been modified, but not how. 

“Don’t move,” Hubert orders. “One tiny slip, and you’ll be lucky if a scar is all you have to show for it.” 

Byleth’s eyes dart to Edelgard. Her hands are clenched in her lap, white-knuckled, her expression unreadable. But she doesn’t protest. So Byleth inhales. Lets it out. And nods.

“I’m ready,” she says. 

The spell pulses between Hubert’s fingers, a flickering, bubbling dark. Slowly, deliberately, he lowers his hand to her bodice. The cloth crinkles in on itself as it tears. A ping and a sharp crack as the spell finds the corsetry beneath. 

Byleth is frozen in place. Her breaths come quick and shallow, barely reaching her lungs. She is lightheaded, giddy. Blood pounds in her temples, beats in her throat, sets every nerve in her body singing. 

There is no heat. No pain. Nothing but the crackle of dissolving clothing and the pressure of Hubert’s hand sinking closer and closer to her breasts. Until at last leather glove touches bare skin and Byleth lets out a startled, wretched moan.

“That’s quite an accomplishment,” Edelgard muses, sweeping away the remains of Byleth’s top. Her hands linger and Byleth arches into the touch as she finds a nipple, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger until it hardens. 

“My engineers have been working on it for quite some time.” Hubert tips Byleth chin up, so that she’s looking right at him. “Did you think I would kill you here, Professor?”

“Not here,” Byleth says, deliberately inflectionless, and this time it’s Hubert who laughs. 

“It’s really quite safe,” Edelgard assures her. “This variant was developed specifically for boring through non-living matter. Mining, digging survivors from out of the rubble.” Edelgard’s mouth twists. They had no such tools in the wreck of Fhirdiad. The horror of the burning city might well have been what spurred Edelgard to fund the research. 

Hubert lays a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder. Quickly as it appeared, the shadowed expression is gone. 

“Surely,” Huberts says, “there is no need to tell the Professor how _safe_ something is. Not when she so thrills in being horrified.” His hand shifts to her knee, another array forming. 

This time, she’s ready for it. Still, her heart speeds up when the spell activates and the cloth dissolves. Hubert’s hands slide up her thighs and over her hips, destroying breeches and underthings alike. She shivers in the cool air. 

“There you are,” Hubert says. “All for you, Lady Edelgard.” 

Edelgard claps her hands together, looking delighted. “Thank you Hubert. Mm. Whatever shall I do with this delightful gift?”

“I can think of a few things,” Hubert deadpans. 

“I’m sure you can,” Edelgard says glibly. “But my question was entirely rhetorical.” She snaps her fingers. “I’ve got it! Now that you’ve gone through all the trouble of stripping her, there’s something I wish to put back on.” 

She hops off the bed and walks to her voluminous wardrobe, eventually pulling out a length of black cloth. “You had no objections to being blindfolded before,” she tells Byleth. 

“I didn’t,” Byleth agrees, though seeing Edelgard so far away right now is a physical ache. She’s always known humans need contact to thrive, she’s just never thought it would apply to her until now and this strange, hollow chill. 

Whatever Hubert’s noticed in her, he drops his mouth to her ear. “May I touch you?” he asks. It’s a funny question, after everything he’s done so far, but no. It actually makes perfect sense. He still thinks this is all for Edelgard, only tangentially to do with him. 

And so, she nods. “Please.” 

She can feel the faultline of it run through him, shuddering and almost subliminal. “So polite,” he says. “I look forward to hearing _that_ from you again.”

His hands on her breasts are perfectly rough without being lewd. It would be weird, she thinks, for him to be too gentle with her. And he’s not, squeezing and caressing, lingering on all the spots that make her gasp and squirm. He’s undeniably hard, pressed flush against her as he is, but he makes no move to acknowledge it. 

“Having fun?” Edelgard asks them both. Another rhetorical question it seems, as she starts winding the cloth around Byleth’s head, pulling it snug over her eyes. 

Byleth lets the darkness envelop her. It heightens her senses the way Shamir taught her it would. Somewhere in the eaves outside the window, a bird warbles. A stale, pungent smell wafts up from the canals. A vendor cries, hawking roasted meat. Adrestia, welcoming her home. 

And closer by, Edelgard’s hands on her at long last. The stretch and slight cramp in her shoulders, the unyielding grip of the cuffs. Slickness spreading between her own thighs. The susurrus of velvet. Edelgard’s faint perfume, white tea and wildflowers, mixing with the amber of Hubert’s cologne. The rich, earthy smell of arousal. Hers, but not hers alone. 

Someone’s mouth closing over her nipple, Edelgard’s judging by the position, silky-wet and lush. A graze of teeth shooting sparks across her skin. Coarse leather on her other nipple, Hubert’s fingers pinching and twisting, walking right to the edge of pain. Edelgard’s fingernails scraping lightly over the sensitive skin beneath her breasts. Hubert’s mouth hot on the back of her neck. 

Byleth’s head spins and swims. Her hands keep reaching for them, tugging against the restraints, snagging on the sheets. 

“Tell me what you want,” Edelgard says. Her lips hover barely over Byleth’s, so they’re all but sharing the same breath. 

“You,” Byleth says, but that’s not enough, is it? She wants to give back. To hold Edelgard in her arms. To hear her moans, feel her thighs tense in pleasure. But she doesn’t want this to stop either. “I want to make you come,” she says. The words are inelegant, especially in the company she keeps, but they communicate. That, in the end, is what words are for. 

“That can be arranged,” Edelgard says. Her voice only shakes a little. When she wraps around Byleth, it’s skin to skin. She must have undressed when Byleth couldn’t see. She is feverish-warm, and all Byleth can think is, _we fit so well together_. There’s a primal satisfaction to having her like this, naked and entwined and _hers_. 

She straddles Byleth’s hips, thighs clenching around hers, then rises onto her knees, moving higher. At the same time, Hubert gives Byleth’s shoulders a little shove, guiding her to lie down and stuffing a pillow under her head. She thinks she knows where this is going. She’s done this before, tasted a woman riding above her. And it’s good, it’s always been good even before she had a heart, before she felt or remembered much of anything. 

Edelgard, too. She’s far too assured to be untried in this, though she’s always carried her dignity well regardless. Who was it with? Byleth wonders. Hubert, perhaps. He would make the most sense, and the image of the two of them together is a tantalizing one. They’ve always known how the other moved, sketched the shape of the world they would create in perfect tandem. 

Byleth doesn’t need to see to do this. Not with Edelgard’s feet tucked under her shoulders or her thighs clamped over her ears. Not with the way the scent of her hits Byleth like a drug, raw and salty-sweet. Not with how wet she already is, dripping down Byleth’s chin. She’s slick on Byleth’s tongue, and full of tiny muffled noises when she finds her clit. Every sweep gets a reaction. She clutches Byleth’s hair, pulling hard, and Byleth can’t bring herself to mind. 

She comes again and again. Can’t seem to stop after hitting her first peak. Her legs shake, and much as Byleth longs to steady her, that would prove a little difficult right now. She must trust Hubert to do it instead. 

It’s almost meditative in a way, single focus all into one task. Like sword drills or fishing, her mind engaged and drifting all at once. 

At last, Edelgard pulls away. “That’s quite… No more for now.” She sounds fuzzy, fighting exhaustion as she drops down to kiss Byleth. “Your turn when I can think again.”

“You don’t—” Byleth tries to protest. 

Edelgard cuts her off with a sharp bite. “No more modesty,” she says. “Unless you truly want to stop. Don’t say ‘it’s all right. And,” she adds, sliding down the length of Byleth’s body, “you’re going to have to do better than ‘I don’t mind’ this time.” 

“I don’t want to stop,” Byleth says. 

“Good to know,” Edelgard says. “But not good enough. Hubert?”

Hubert pulls Byleth into his lap, her thighs on either side of his, spread wide open. She could close them again and trap his between them, if she was feeling contrary. No contest as to which of them is stronger. 

But then his mouth finds her ear again. “Let her see you,” he murmurs. “Open yourself up for her.” She can almost imagine Edelgard’s gaze, hot as a knife sinking into butter, hazy with pleasure and eager for more. And she is undone, hips bucking toward the unseen temptation of her Emperor, cunt pulsing with liquid heat. 

Delicate fingernails scratch up and down her inner thighs. “You know what you have to do,” Edelgard says. 

Behind the blindfold, Byleth squeezes her eyes shut, tries to get ahold of herself. Finds she doesn’t want to. “Please, El,” she says, quiet. 

Edelgard’s hands are shaking. Byleth can feel the tremor in them. “You… You called me ‘El.’”

There’s so much history in the name. Edelgard’s father. Dimitri. Byleth hopes she hasn’t just made a dreadful mistake. 

Edelgard kisses her ankle, brief and serious. “I never thought you’d… Thank you, Byleth. I…” Her chin comes to rest against Byleth’s knee. 

“I love you,” Byleth says. Because it feels right. Because it’s time. Because the ache in her chest may be unfamiliar, but she knows who it fixes on. 

Tears splash down onto her shins. Behind her, Hubert tenses. “Lady Edelgard?”

“Oh, stop fussing,” Edelgard grumbles, thick-voiced. Happy tears, then. Tears are complicated, Byleth thinks. Terrifying in their outpouring of intensity. Precious from those used to holding them back. 

“And Byleth?” she says. “Of course I feel the same. I always have.” 

Something inside Byleth unclenches as Edelgard kisses every part of her she can reach. Her mouth, her abs where they tickle, the scar on her right hip where she’d taken an arrow and not bothered to erase it with Divine Pulse. 

“However.” Edelgard’s voice turns mischievous again. Byleth’s heart leaps to hear it. “There is still something you haven’t told me.” 

“Care to guess what that might be?” Hubert prods her. 

“I have to tell you what I want you to do to me,” Byleth guesses. It crashes down on her all at once. Emotions, bodies, the tangled lot of them. This is too much, and it’s amazing, and it’s real. 

Is this what being human feels like?

The desperate yearning from before has receded, but she’s still naked, with a beautiful woman between her legs, and all the permission to _want_ she could possibly ask for. 

“Please, touch me,” she says. No, this is Edelgard, who disdains vagueness. “Please put your fingers inside me. Put your mouth on me. _Fuck me_.” 

Speaking the words out loud is a release of itself. It’s not like she’s self-conscious about it, but without the passion that’s eluded her until recently, it’s always felt a little like lying. 

Not anymore. 

“Well done,” Edelgard says. Her breath is cool on Byleth’s cunt as she lowers her head, her tongue warm and languid. She’s deliberate, learning Byleth by touch, memorizing her taste, gathering plans of attack. 

Byleth relaxes into it. This part usually takes a while for her. She gets turned on easily enough, but cresting that wave takes work, even at her own hand. 

Hubert’s hand curls around Byleth’s throat, tilts her face up toward him right as one of Edelgard’s slim fingers slides easily inside her. “Give yourself over to her,” he whispers hypnotically. 

Another finger, moving together, spreading her apart.

“Let her _take_ you.” 

As Hubert’s words dissolve her into molten iron and gold, Edelgard’s fingers find their rhythm, curving hard in her, thrusting deeper, a relentless onslaught. 

“Know that you are hers, every inch of you.”

Edelgard’s mouth descends on her again, tongue curling around her clit, driving inside between her fingers. 

Byleth cries out, and as she does, Hubert whisks the cloth from her eyes. 

Light bursts on the silver crown of Edelgard’s head. Her battle-scarred hand gripping Byleth’s hip. Pale skin previously unglimpsed, the curve of her shoulders. 

“Dedicate all your pleasure to her command,” Hubert says, and Byleth’s cunt clenches down around Edelgard’s fingers, gushing wet, and she’s coming, choking on a silent scream and drowning in the din of her heartbeat. 

She’s drowsy afterward, heavy-limbed, sweaty hair stuck to her forehead. A blur of Edelgard-and-Hubert rolls her to one side, unlatching the cuffs. She tries lifting one arm and her shoulder resettles with a shockingly loud pop. 

“Do your hands feel cold?” Edelgard asks, and Byleth shakes her head. Still somewhat numb from all the lying on them, but the pins and needles of awakening are already prickling at her. She lets Edelgard chafe her wrists, wiggle her fingers back and forth, and drifts, content and thoughtless.

“Magnificent,” someone says, and she’s startled to realize it’s Hubert. She turns her head to look at him muzzily. “I knew you would not disappoint.” 

“You think you understand me so well?” Byleth asks. There’s no accusation in it. Perhaps he does. They’ve known each other long enough by now. 

He smiles, almost soft. “Of course I do. We are akin, you and I.”

Two birds in flight, Byleth thinks. Dark wings and gray beside the gold of the eagle on a crimson field. 

She pulls herself up onto her knees using his doublet for leverage, then drags him down the rest of the way, mouth to her mouth. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t relish his gasp, didn’t swallow it down like honey. 

“Did I surprise you this time?” she asks. 

“You did,” Edelgard replies for him, as Hubert looks away, like a cat licking its left shoulder and pretending it meant to fall off the windowsill. “He deserved it.” 

Hubert makes a face. “If we all got what we deserved, my lady—”

“We’d be running all of Fodlan?” She replies cheekily.

“ _You’d_ be running all of Fodlan,” Hubert says. “And I would remain ever your shadow.” 

“Only at noon,” Edelgard says. “You’re far too long otherwise, my gangly beanpole of a shadow.” 

Hubert shoots her a look. “He’ll be there the rest of the day,” Byleth translates for him. “You just won’t know it.”

“Oh,” Edelgard says, “I’ll know it. I always know.” 

“And on that note,” Hubert says, “I should take my leave.” He rises from the bed and stoops to gather his boots. Up close, Byleth can see that his trousers are still damp with her juices. He must know as well, though he gives no sign of it. The dark cloth should hide the stain from onlookers, no one the wiser save the three of them. 

He bends over Edelgard’s hand, unperturbed by its nakedness or hers. Then, right as he gets ready to exit, his eye falls on the little bag on the nightstand. Before Byleth can protest, he scoops it up with a fluid gesture. 

He doesn’t open it, merely feels out its contents. Byleth knows the exact moment when he discerns the ring beneath the cloth. With a crooked smile, he tosses the bag back to her. She nearly fumbles it, stiff-handed, but manages to catch it just in time. 

“Best not dawdle with this as well, Professor. Or else I shall be forced to step in again.”

With Edelgard settling in at her side, arms drawn around her waist, face tucked into the crook of her neck, Byleth doesn’t think she’ll need any extra incentive to act. It’s almost a shame. Further ‘intervention’ might be intriguing. 

“Do your worst,” she says, and turns to kiss her helplessly-giggling Emperor.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following kink meme prompt:
> 
> _So we all know Hubert is a helpful evil minion who would like to lay the whole world at his emperor's feet like a cat presenting a dead mouse, and also sometimes takes matters into his own hands. He's also, in spite of himself, kind of fond of this troublesome professor, and kind of ships it, and thus would like to lay Byleth at Edelgard's feet like a mouse, except this one's alive and ravishable._
> 
> _Basically Hubert presenting Byleth bound up like a pretty gift, possibly blindfolded, gagged, whatever, to his dearest Emperor. Shenanigans ensue. Level of involvement Hubert has beyond that, in this scene or with Edelgard in general, is up to you. The kinkier the better, except bathroom business and mommy kink._
> 
> _\+ if he doesn't bother telling either of them what's going on and Byleth just kinda rolls with it  
>  ++ if this is how Byleth and El get together because they are kind of disasters sometimes  
> +++ if Byleth has just an epic underreaction to the entire situation  
> ++++++++++ if this is just after the war and the engagement ring falls out of Byleth's pocket in the course of El ravishing her and she just blinks and says she was going to do that later_
> 
> I had to fudge that last one a little, but the rest is all in here. 
> 
> And okay, about half of me is like, this entire thing can only ever happen in Porn World (tm). But the other half is like, yeah, but Hubert _would_ tho. And Byleth in turn _would_ Similarly, I can't decide whether the title is shitpost at its finest or my absolute favorite. But hey, it's not a song lyric! According to the internet, it's an actual Western European proverb. The internet, alas, won't tell me what it means. It means porn now. There. 
> 
> Thanks as always to [Letterblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade) for beta. <3


End file.
